


Songs About Teenagers

by larthrain



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, Gen, Loki and Tony are friends and need to be stopped, Self-Indulgent, Tags May Change, They haven't met yet in this fic this is set up, teenagers in college
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-29
Updated: 2017-07-29
Packaged: 2018-12-08 09:26:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11643678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/larthrain/pseuds/larthrain
Summary: In which Tony Stark is not out of control and Loki Odinson is certainly not bored.When they both find themselves attending university as the two youngest students in school history, it's going to take more than denial to get them through in one piece. Year One is only the beginning.





	Songs About Teenagers

Tony Stark worked until his hands were shaking and his eyes felt grainy, and then he worked some more.

 

His lab was mostly still. It was sometime past midnight, sometime past two, sometime before six o’clock, and he could have been the only person in the world. The lights were dim. In one hand he held a fist-sized device. His other hand was gripped around the screwdriver wheedling minute parts out of it. His fingertips were black where they’d been sparked or picked up grease, and there were random smears on his face from where he’d absent-mindedly scratched his nose or rubbed his eyes. 

 

The night before, Tony had been exhausted. He had worked through it. Now he only felt, as though from a great distance away, the speed at which his thoughts were racing. His hands implemented plans and designs of their own accord. He didn’t feel the passage of time anymore.

 

Out of the entire Stark mansion, this room, this subbasement, was the only place (besides his room) where he could breathe these days.

 

Tony didn’t hear the soft knocking coming from the door. In fact, he was only peripherally aware of his mother’s presence in his workshop when she cleared room among the spare parts for a plate. 

 

“Your father and I are home,” Maria Stark said softly.

 

Tony grunted back at her, hands still working, eyes glazed with inward focus. She gently ran a hand over his head and he blinked like he was waking up.

 

“What?”

 

“We just got in from the trip.”

 

“Oh.” Tony set the screwdriver down. He still looked disoriented. “Well, how was it?”

 

“Fine, I suppose.” Maria Stark looked around. “Have you been eating?”

 

Tony smiled at her. “Of course.”  _ Lie. _

 

His mother looked pained. Oh, God, she looked pained, and it was his fault. She stroked his hair again, concern making her look older. “Tony, you’re a growing boy. You need to eat.”

 

“I will! I’ll get something from the kitchen after I finish this one thing.”

 

“Tony.”

 

“It’s just that I’ve been working on this for a while and it needs to get done and it’s fresh in my head right now, and-” And he was holding the screwdriver again, and he was narrowing his attention to the device, and his eyes had that look again.

 

“Tony.”

 

“I’ll get to it, I swear. Just give me a few minutes or an hour. I’ll try not to forget and then we can all eat fancy cheese squares like the rich fuckers we are and it’ll all be just merry and I’ll-”

 

Tony shut up when he felt his mother’s arms wrap around him. She pressed her face into his hair and breathed in shakily. 

 

“Tony, is this about about your condition?”

 

He stilled like a broken machine. His eyes dimmed. His fingers stopped twitching.

 

“I said I wouldn’t try anything, Mom.”

 

“I know you did,” she said, squeezing him gently, “but I worry. You know how mothers are.”

 

He thought about how long his parents’ business trip had been. “Yeah,” he said.

 

“What would help?”

 

She wasn’t talking about any of his projects, or his eating habits or his sleeping habits. What she was talking about ran deeper. Sometimes Tony wished he could stick a screwdriver inside of himself and fix everything wrong with him, because it would sure as hell be easier than everything else that was happening.

 

Maybe, by the end of it all, he  _ would _ stick a screwdriver inside of himself. Maybe it would fix something.

 

“Your father and I want you to take a break, honey.”

 

“Sure. Honolulu or Vegas?”

 

“Not that kind of break. Someplace that will take your mind off of everything.”

 

Tony had the wherewithal to be wary. “Vegas would do an excellent job of that..”

 

“You’re not going to Vegas alone, Tony. We mean school.”

 

“But I graduated already.”

 

“This is a different kind of college, Tony.”

 

“Huh?”

 

“They call it Lee University. It’s a place for gifted students, and, well, your father and I thought you might enjoy-”

 

Tony frowned abruptly and jerked away. “You’re getting rid of me?”

 

“No, Tony, honey, we aren’t-”

 

“Dad would. This, you, I bet you already applied, didn’t you? I bet you guys already filled out all the damn paperwork-”

 

“Tony-”

 

“I don’t want to and you can’t make me.” It was childish and he knew it, but he couldn’t quite seem to think straight. His lungs felt tight. His chest hurt. For some reason, he wanted to cry. 

 

“Registration is next week,” said Maria Stark, watching her son with guilt-wracked eyes. “Tony, we’re just so worried for you, and we want you to make friends-”

 

“I’m fine the way I am!” barked Tony. “I’m fine in my workshop. I love what I’m doing and nothing’s going to get better if you send me away just so you don’t have to deal with me and my-”

 

“You got arrested, Tony. We had to bail you out of juvenile hall. Your father and I read the police report. We’re so  _ worried _ -”

 

“It was just a bit of fun is all, geez. That’s all it was. A bit of fun.”

 

“We got the call in the middle of the night in Benghazi, Tony. We had to transfer payments through international accounts-”

 

“And the butler picked me up.” Tony scowled violently for a split second, standing. “Jarvis picked me up. Not you. Not Dad.” His fist tightened around the screwdriver, knuckles white and eyes flashing.

 

Maria Stark stared back at him, eyes sad and scared. He recognized that fear. She wasn’t afraid of him, she was afraid for him. Her lipstick was precise as a knife’s edge, as always, but he could see gray in the roots of her hair. 

 

He did this to her. He didn’t work right, and he did this to her. 

 

Tony Stark sat down. “Okay, Mom. I’ll… I’ll pack. Later.”

 

“Are you sure this isn’t about your condition?”

 

“It’s not, Mom.”

 

“Honey-”

 

“I need to be alone.”

 

Maria Stark pursed her lips but complied. She kissed his hair before leaving, heels clicking every step of the way now that he was listening for them. 

 

The sound of the closing door echoed throughout Tony’s lab. His ears rang with the sound while one hand absently covered the center of his chest.

 

It was just a bit of fun. Just an arrest, just some alcohol and supermodels and the usual shit that everybody else did but didn’t talk about, so why was he the one getting shipped off? 

 

Tony sighed and checked the device. There were some flaws in the design that he still wanted to fix. The lights in his lab remained dim. 

 

He stared at the screw for a long time. “What the hell.”

 

There was a mattress in the corner. Tony fell onto it and curled up, one hand drifting to the center of his chest while he fell asleep.

 

* * *

 

“Have you considered going here?”

 

“No, Thor,” said Loki without looking up from his book. “I haven’t and I’m not.”

 

Thor dropped a brochure onto Loki’s book, looming over the back of the couch. Loki brushed it off without looking at it but tilted his head back to look Thor in the eye. Even with Thor leaning over the edge, there was still considerable space between them. Loki idly wondered if Thor was through with his growth spurt yet. Knowing his luck, probably not.

 

“You don’t even know what I’m talking about,” Thor accused.

 

“You’re right,” Loki said, “which is a rare and nigh unheard of turn of events.” He reached for the brochure and gave it his most noticeably languid raised eyebrow. “How did you hear about this?”

 

“Volstagg was talking about it. He said it was a good school for… different people, and I thought maybe you could make friends there. It would be good for you.”

 

“Are you still trying to get rid of me?” Loki shot back with a smile. “It’s not going to work. I’m going to be sticking around. Resistance is futile.” He toyed with the pencil in his hand while he spoke and did his best to keep his voice light. He’d been walking on eggshells around Thor for a while, since he’d graduated high school early and Thor seemed to be on the verge of vocalising his exact thoughts about Loki’s continuing presence in the family home. “You’ve got to put up with my pranks for two more years, like it or not.”

 

“After two years it’s college for me, and you can work on your own here.” Thor plucked the brochure from Loki’s fingers and waved it in his face. “Plenty of credits you can get, and loads of different classes.” 

 

Loki dryly noted that Thor hadn’t even said what the college specialized in, or their acceptance rates, or location, or anything remotely informational. Somebody ought to tell Thor that tact was useless when your motives were obvious. 

 

It was like they were both under a spell. Loki could convince himself that he’d feel right at home around Thor’s friends until everybody graduated as long as Thor didn’t say that he was dreading the thought of having to put up with his little brother’s pranks any longer. Until the clock struck eight o’clock on the first day of school, there was hope. There was a chance that something would make this chemical formula bearable. 

 

Thor, two years older than Loki and just beginning his senior year of high school, could not have more obviously wanted his too-clever little brother who graduated two years early despite also being younger to stick around, picking up his secrets like a sponge and inconveniencing him and his friends with taunts, pranks, and thinly veiled blackmail. 

 

For his part, Loki didn’t think he was that bad. Thor’s friends were melodramatic. Thor was easy pickings. Low hanging fruit and all that. And he enjoyed having the free time to wander the family property. The Odinson family had acres upon acres of orchards sprawled around their large house, and although the youngest Odinson had always been bookish he did, in his own way, revere nature. 

 

“Give me a good reason,” Loki said, eyes on his book.

 

Thor hesitated. “What are you reading?”

 

“ _ The Left Hand of Darkness _ . Ursula K. Le Guin.”

 

“I’m sure plenty of people at Lee University will have also enjoyed reading about Guin’s dark hand. It’s exactly that kind of crowd.” 

 

Thor was so earnest. So, so, so earnest. It broke Loki’s heart. 

 

“I see.”

 

Thor smiled confidently. “I can tell you’re being sarcastic. But here! You’ll like this. One of the professors is strange.”

 

“I don’t need to attend university to find weird professors, Thor. Remember Mr. Parra?”

 

“No, not like that. I mean he’s that doctor you’ve got all those books about.”

 

Loki shot upright, eyes fixed on Thor owlishly. “Doctor Strange is teaching now?”

 

Thor nodded, beaming and not a little smug.

 

It only took seconds to pull out his phone, Google, and verify that Thor wasn’t inventing stories. Not that Thor usually would. That was Loki’s job.

 

This changed things. 

 

An institution that hired brilliant minds like that of Doctor Strange just might not constrict Loki’s studies. Maybe he’d actually find people smarter than him. Maybe he’d get to meet Strange.

 

The silence stretched between them. “I’ll think about it,” Loki said at last.

 

Thor walked away satisfied, for now.

 

Loki, left on the couch, stared at the brochure. 

 

Very early in life, Loki had determined that school was a place where simple-minded idiots taught unsuspecting children how to be simple-minded idiots for the rest of their small lives. Loki’s education had, accordingly, been almost entirely self-taught and had, of course, led to him testing out of everything he could test out of and graduating early. The nearest colleges had all seemed nothing more than extensions of high school.

 

Lee University, on the other hand… 

 

The pamphlet said it was just outside of New York City. It was not Ivy League, because it was its own kind of institution. It did not specify what kind of institution it was meant to be. It had been founded just this past year.

 

Ten minutes of research into the surrounding area sparked Loki’s interest.

 

Maybe the little town of Asgard was getting old. Maybe he knew everybody here a little too well. Perhaps it would, sooner or later, be in Loki’s best interest to set his sights on loftier places.


End file.
